Go Daddy hires former Yahoo exec Blake Irving as CEO

Blake Irving, formerly a long time Microsoft executive and chief product officer of Yahoo, has been esteemed the role of CEO by Web hosting giant Go Daddy, effective January 7, 2013. Irving will succeed Scott Wagner, a member of KKR who has been serving as interim CEO since July.

Go Daddy executive chairman and founder, Bob Parsons, commented, "Go Daddy, the industry leader of web hosting solutions for small and medium businesses, is poised for a promising future. Irving's deep technology experience and his history of developing new cutting-edge products and leading large global teams make him an enormously compelling choice to drive Go Daddy to the next level. Go Daddy has made great strides with Scott Wagner as CEO, and we look forward to building on that in the future."

Go Daddy has recently been expanding its market-leading products to support its nearly 11 million customers, mostly small business customers both domestically and internationally. Recently, Go Daddy also acquired Outright.com, a cloud-based financial management application and the company also formed a partnership with DudaMobile to launch mobile website builder.

"I'm honored for the opportunity to lead such a talented team and to be a part of such an innovative company," said Irving on his appointment. "As a long time Go Daddy customer, I have seen firsthand an organization that is committed to its customers 24 hours a day and seven days a week and yet there still remains much more we can do to enhance the customer experience. This is a fantastic opportunity, and I can't wait to hit the ground running in January."

"Go Daddy is fortunate to have Blake Irving join the team for the next chapter in his long time career as an innovator," said Scott Wagner, Go Daddy's Interim CEO. "We have good momentum on product and our international growth and having someone with Blake's talent and character lead the company will only accelerate it."